Pain of Memories
by Cheeseburger of Doom
Summary: This is a crossover of Slayers and the Kenshin movie. Two dead characters meet and face painful memories from their lives. Can they help each other to get over the pain?


Pain of Memories

*Warning* Mild mild and I mean MILD yaoi.   
*Disclaimer* I don't own the Slayers, I don't own any part of Rurouni Kenshin, especially not the movie, and I don't own Gentatsu's poofy hair, nor do I really want to.

The bright light caused by the five Darkstar weapons were the end of him, and he knew it. He didn't really mind; he wanted oblivion. Too much had happened to him during life; he wanted the end. No more monsters, no more gods, no more Golden Dragons...No more anything. It was all over. He smiled.

And then the light exploded around him. He felt no pain, which was odd. He had expected pain; horrible pain, the kind of pain he had felt so long ago when he had almost been destroyed by the Golden Dragons, or the pain when Lord Gaav had killed him. There was nothing this time, only oblivion.

Or was it oblivion? He could still think, and so he figured that he still had a mind. But if he still had a mind, didn't that mean he was alive?

He couldn't see. His eyes were closed. If he still had eyes. He tried to open them, and found that he was able to. It was all too strange.

"Am I dead?" he wondered aloud. He looked around him. He was floating in an empty void. There was nothing around him but darkness. This looked like death.

But he had wanted oblivion, not this endless void! He had wanted the pain to stop; he had wanted to forget everything. Had Lina Inverse somehow destroyed his hopes once again?

"Damn it, why?" he yelled. His voice was swallowed up in the nothingness. He tried to gouge his eyes out with his fingernails, but he suddenly he was unable to move his arms. He realized that he was moving, being propelled by some unseen force. Forward into the void! He fell, for how long he could not tell. It could have been hours, it could have been years. In the emptiness he could make no sense of anything. He fell faster, and faster, and faster, until he finally hit solid ground. His mouth was full of dirt. He spit it out, and stood up. His body was his own again; he could move it at his own will. It still upset him that he did not have his oblivion, but this was better than being pulled by something unseen.

Once more he looked around him, golden eyes flashing. This place was not dark and empty, it was bright; almost too bright. The light hurt his eyes. He had to squint. It appeared to be a vast landscape; rolling hills, mountains, lakes, rivers, streams; all stretched out before him. He lifted off the ground, and hovered above it, taking in the scenery. It was beautiful, although the effect was lost on him, because his mind focused on only one thing: why was he here?

"What the hell is going on?" he yelled, for the sake of any being that might be near. He wanted an answer, and he wanted an answer now.

"I think it's a place for the damned." 

Valgaav looked frantically for the owner of the voice, and found him, seated on a rock below. He had not seen the man at first, because the light was making it difficult for him to see anything. He descended from the air, and landed beside the rock. "What do you mean, a place for the damned?"

"I've been here for a while, and I'm sure that I had to come here because of the things I did while I was alive." The man was strange. He wore a sky-blue gi over a white shirt, and hakama of a purple colour with a dark stripe at the bottom of the leg, and a thinner stripe of the same colour over it. His hair was strapped up in an impossible way, and his slanted eyes were blue. He was quite handsome really. It was not his looks that made him strange; it was the timeless quality that hovered about him. He may have been there for thousands of years, or perhaps he had never been there at all.

"You mean, this is hell?"

The spiky haired man shook his head. It was hard not to notice how beautiful his eyes were; full of so many emotions that conflicted with each other and left a light that shone through. Eyes that were a window to his very soul.

"I don't think this is hell. Hell would be much simpler than this."

"What do you mean?"

The spiky haired man turned and looked out at the scenery. "Hell would be far less beautiful, and much more forgiving." His hand gripped the hilt of one of the swords strapped to his belt. "There have been no other people up until now. My name is Takatsuki Gentatsu."

"Valgaav."

Gentatsu turned back, and regarded the other man with all of his attention. Up until now he hadn't really noticed the other man's odd appearance; the light also impeded his vision, and he hadn't been paying attention anyway. He was lost in his thoughts. Now, he took in the turquoise hair, the golden eyes, and the horn at the top of his head. He was bare-chested, and from his back spread two black feathery wings. Gentatsu's eyes lingered over his bare chest for a few moments, then he noted the beige pants and the odd-looking boots. This man...if he was even a man...was definitely strange.

"I've never heard a name quite like that before."

"Well, you have now." Valgaav did not appreciate Gentatsu's attempt to converse. He wanted to get out of here, not chit-chat.

Gentatsu sighed. It had been so long since he'd had any company. He really wanted someone to talk to, but it seemed that Valgaav was not the talking type. "This world is full of pain, even if we are already dead. Right now it is peaceful, but at other times...strange things happen." He wanted to warn the man beforehand, so that he wouldn't end up like Gentatsu had the first few times; dazed and wounded.

"Strange things? What things?"

"Well, it's hard to describe." Gentatsu tried to find the words. "The first time something like that happened, I did not do anything because I thought that since I am dead, I would not feel the pain, but I did. I have been injured so many times that I have lost count, but even though many of those injuries are fatal, I still do not pass on to the afterlife. I remain here, in this emptiness."

"Emptiness." Valgaav began to feel something he did not feel often: fear. He did not want to stay here, he wanted his oblivion! He did not want to spend eternity feeling pain that would not bring his end. He had thought that his end had already come.

"It is lonely here. Very lonely. I lived to protect my friends and family, but there is nothing in this existence to strive for. It has no purpose."

Gentatsu's words struck a chord within Valgaav, and he shivered. It did sound lonely. Emptiness...But Valgaav had never had any friends, really, and the Ancient Dragon race was long dead. He hadn't had any "family" for a very long time. So according to Gentatsu, his existence had been pointless anyway.

He had worked for Lord Gaav, though. Lord Gaav was probably the closest thing he'd had to family; so maybe Lord Gaav had been his reason for living. But then he had been destroyed, by Lina Inverse. After that, his purpose was revenge.

But what kind of purpose was revenge, anyway? What could it possibly accomplish?

It was all too much to think about. Valgaav didn't want to think; he wanted to take action and leave.

Just as he was about to do something, anything, the ground began to shake. Valgaav was knocked off his feet, and he took flight. Gentatsu did not have that advantage. He clung to his rock for dear life.

"Is this what you mean by strange things?" Valgaav demanded.

"Yes. This happens sometimes, and sometimes..." Gentatsu was cut short when the ground opened up under him, and he fell down into the earth. Valgaav swooped down and he followed, curious as to what was going on.

The sight of Gentatsu falling without any way to save himself made Valgaav feel...something. He caught Gentatsu's hand, and pulled the man into his arms, to carry him to safety. Only, there was no safety. All around there was only the earth, crumbling to pieces. He did not know what to do. He kept going down, and down, and down, into the gaping hole that he assumed was the centre of the world that they were on. It was not. It was a different world; another time, another place. It was a cavern he had spent many days and nights in; his hideout.

"What the hell is going on here?" he whispered. He had forgotten about Gentatsu momentarily, and when he realized the other man was still in his arms, he quickly let go.

"Thank you," Gentatsu said. "You probably just saved me from a very painful fall." He looked around. "What is this? Usually the things I see are things that I recognize."

"This is something that I recognize," Valgaav said. "This is where I spent a lot of my time in misery." He realized that he had just admitted some of his feelings to the other man. He didn't even really know him, why would he do something like that?

"Why were you in misery?"

Valgaav was silent. He did not want to answer that question. The truth was, when it came down to it, he didn't really know who to blame anymore. Lina Inverse had destroyed Gaav, but he never would have met Gaav if it hadn't been for the Golden Dragons. He hated them all.

"I am sorry. I shouldn't have asked." Gentatsu clutched the hilt of one of his swords. "This place is so..."

"Dismal." Valgaav turned away. "I never wanted to see it again. Why am I here?"

"I do not know."

The room started spinning, round and round. It was sickening. It went faster and faster, until all the colours blurred into one. Only the room moved; Valgaav and Gentatsu remained still. Valgaav thought he could see many different worlds; all of them different, and yet somehow the same. People on all of them were in pain, everywhere. Finally, the spinning stopped, and they were no longer in Valgaav's hideout. They were in the middle of a forest.

"No, this is..." Gentatsu shuddered. "This world has thrown many things at me, but never anything like this."

Valgaav looked past him. There was a battle going on, between a man with a long ponytail, and...Gentatsu? But Gentatsu was still standing with him! He watched as the other man slashed the other Gentatsu across his face. Blood sprayed everywhere, and Gentatsu fell, dead.

The Gentatsu Valgaav knew was shuddering. "I did not want to see that. I died for my beliefs, so I thought that it would not bother me to die that way...But having to see it, it makes me sick, because I know that I killed many men in the same way."

Valgaav looked back to the corpse. "Just who are you, anyway?"

"You did not answer my question, is there a reason I should answer yours?"

Valgaav shrugged. Gentatsu had a point. His beautiful eyes were unnerving, and Valgaav had trouble holding his gaze.

The scene changed again, but this time it changed so quickly that Valgaav did not even notice until he heard a voice.

"What are you doing, you two?"

"You can see us?"

"Of course I can see you, Gentatsu. Why wouldn't I be able to see you? You're standing in plain sight!"

Gentatsu regarded the man with a strange look. "What is going on?"

"Time to fight!" the man exclaimed. "No time for questions. Go!"

"Do you know him?" Valgaav asked.

"No I don't. I thought you might."

"No."

"This is not a memory, so what is it?" Gentatsu wondered aloud. The other man grabbed one of his wrists, and one of Valgaav's, and dragged them away. His strength was inhuman, and neither of the men could break away. They were dragged into the middle of a bloody battlefield. Bodies lay scattered everywhere.

The other man disappeared, leaving them alone with the refuse. Valgaav scanned over the bodies with his golden eyes, and saw something that made him sick. The corpses of the dead Ancient Dragons, slaughtered by the Golden Dragons. And the mangled body of Lord Gaav.

Gentatsu saw something altogether different. The bloody corpses of all the men he had killed as a Hitokiri.

Fury welled up inside of Valgaav. He wanted his revenge! But where was his enemy now? Where was Lina Inverse? Where were the Golden Dragons? He could see them, yes, there in front of him...

Gentatsu turned, and he saw the Hitokiri Battousai, standing right in front of him. He drew his sword and attacked!

Valgaav didn't know why Lina Inverse wasn't using her magic against him, but he didn't really care, either. He let loose some magic, hoping he would kill her and the Golden Dragons that seemed to be helping her. He heard a cry of pain, and suddenly his mind cleared. He was no longer crazy with the thirst for revenge; he could now see that there were no dragons, there was no Lina Inverse. It was all in his mind. The person he had injured was...

"Gentatsu!"

His side was bleeding heavily. "Gentatsu..."

"I thought you were Battousai. Who did you think I was?" Gentatsu asked, breath coming in gasps.

"I thought..." Valgaav knelt by him. He felt...Gentatsu had done nothing to him; he had only tried to help him, by warning him about he world, and now he had hurt him. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. He had probably never said those words and meant it in his entire existence, but he meant it now.

"It was not your fault, Valgaav." Gentatsu struggled to sit up. "Besides, I am already dead. The pain will be gone soon."

Valgaav looked away from Gentatsu's beautiful blue eyes. "I think this world is meant to prove that the pain will never be gone."

"You mean, this world is the pain of memories?"

"Yes. Memories that will never stop haunting me. Or you."

The pain in Gentatsu's side ceased, and he felt his wounds close over. He touched Valgaav's hand lightly, and the other man faced him once more with a look of shock on his face. 

"I was a Hitokiri during my life, the only one in my family who could fight. I knew that I had to fight, and destroy the evil in the world. The things I had to do...they kept me up at night. But for my friends and my family, I fought. I thought it was right, I truly did, but now...after having so much time to think, I'm not so sure it was. There is no way to change the past, but it still haunts me." As Gentatsu spoke, Valgaav could see what he was describing, all around him. 

"But you fought for your friends and your family. At least you had purpose."

"Yes, I had that. Tell me, Valgaav, what memories haunt you."

"I was born into the race of the Ancient Dragons. Long ago, the Golden Dragons destroyed every last one, except me. They killed all of them because they feared their power! I was almost dead when the Demon Dragon King Gaav saved me. He killed me and I was reborn as a Makuzo. I worked for Lord Gaav, and he was the closest thing to family I guess I had, but Lina Inverse...a sorceress...destroyed him. I went crazy for revenge, and...did some things, and that's how I ended up here." Talking about it hurt, but not as much as Valgaav had expected, especially since Gentatsu's hand was still on his.

Gentatsu had seen all that Valgaav spoke of, just as Valgaav had seen Gentatsu's memories. He could see how painful his existence had been. "Revenge is not always the best answer. Revenge can be very lonely."

"Lonely?"

"Yes. Were you lonely, Valgaav?"

"I...Yes, I was lonely." But he was Makuzo, and Makuzo did not feel the happy, caring emotions that humans did...Still a part of him was Ancient Dragon, and that part of him hurt for what had happened; that part of him was...lonely.

"I have been lonely for a long time too, Valgaav. I miss my younger sister, and the people I fought with. They were my friends. I have no friends here, now."

"I didn't have any friends. I did not need friendship."

"No? Everyone needs someone," Gentatsu said. 

"I am Makuzo, I do not feel such things!"

"Really? Are you that, here? Or are you just Valgaav, as I am just Gentatsu. I am no longer a Hitokiri, I am just a lonely man stuck in the middle of nowhere, trying to make sense of the miserable existence I have been forced to have."

The things Gentatsu were saying made Valgaav feel confused, frightened. He wanted to run away, but there was nowhere to go. He had missed his chance at oblivion, and this was all he had. "I..."

Gentatsu could see the pain in Valgaav's eyes and it touched him. He did not like to see that kind of pain in anyone that he cared about, and he cared about Valgaav. It was a strange thing, really, to care for someone he did not really know; but Valgaav's tragic past and broken heart reminded him of his own misery, and he felt deep sympathy for him, as well as something else. "If you do not feel those emotions, why did you care so much what had happened to your race? Why did you care so much what had happened to your Lord Gaav?"

Valgaav opened his mouth to make some sort of reply but realized he didn't have one. Gentatsu had a very good point. Why did he care so much? Because they had been everything to him. He had cared about them.

"We are not so different, Valgaav," Gentatsu said, and he leaned over and kissed him.

Valgaav was completely shocked. Never in any of his wildest dreams had he ever expected something like this to happen to him, nor had he ever thought he could feel what he felt now. It was terrible, and yet at the same time, wonderful. He kissed Gentatsu back with an enthusiasm he had not know he possessed. Such a strange feeling, but he found that he liked it...

Suddenly, Gentatsu realized just what he had done, and he pulled back, embarrassed. "I am sorry, I don't know what came over me..."

"No, it's all right," Valgaav said. "I don't mind."

Gentatsu smiled. He was about to say something, when the sky overhead suddenly changed colour. A moment ago it had been a dismal grey, and now it was a bright blue.

"The blue skies must be forever high and forever clear..." That hadn't come to Gentatsu's mind in a long time, but he thought of it now. "Yes, they must."

Someone was approaching them. Whether it was a man or a woman was impossible to tell. It wore a long white robe, and its hair was golden and it flowed down its back. Its eyes were ageless, and full of wisdom of centuries past. Just as timeless as this world.

"Who are you?" Gentatsu asked.

"No one important," the person replied. Its voice was just as genderless as its appearance, but somehow it seemed a little more masculine, maybe because the two it was facing were male. "I have come to end this."

"End this?" Valgaav asked, puzzled. "Are you the one who sent us here?"

"Perhaps. Although, it would be more accurate to say that you came here yourselves." The white-clad figure laughed, seeing something amusing in the situation that the other two men failed to see. "In any case, it is time for you both to move on."

"Into oblivion?" Only moments before that was what Valgaav had been wishing for, but now...Now he wanted to stay and find out more about the new feelings he had discovered.

"Oblivion? No, my friends, not oblivion. There is no oblivion, that is just a myth." The ageless eyes twinkled. "However, I am afraid I will have to separate you."

"Separate us? Why?" Gentatsu demanded.

"Because there are things left to discover. Valgaav is to be reborn, so that he may learn about life, real life."

"What about Gentatsu?"

"Gentatsu will finally be allowed to pass on. You see, you are both from two different places, two different times, and we wanted you to meet. You taught each other a few things from being together, valuable things."

"But I don't want to be reborn. I want to...stay with Gentatsu."

The figure in white reached out a soft hand to touch Valgaav's cheek. "Of course you do, but as I said, there are things left for you yet. When your time comes once again, you will meet up with Gentatsu once more."

"How long will that be?"

"That, I do not know, only that there will be a day when you will both meet again." The eyes turned to Gentatsu. "You showed him friendship, and maybe something deeper. He can go back to the world he came from and try to make right the wrong that he did. You understand that, do you not?"

"I wish there was a way for me to do the same."

"Oh, but there is. You left those you loved with memories of you, and they will be true to that. It may lead them down the wrong path, as you traveled down a wrong path, but they will be trying to do right."

"Trying to do right and doing right is not necessarily the same thing."

"No, that is true enough, but in your memory they will live and do what they can to improve the world. That is your legacy. Valgaav left behind only pain, and he needs to go back. I will leave you to talk, for a while; I will return, and then it will be time." The other person, a genderless mystery, disappeared.

"I wonder who that could have been," Gentatsu said.

"I don't want to go back," Valgaav said. "In that world there was only pain."

"In this world, I thought there was only pain, until you came," Gentatsu said. He put his hand on Valgaav's shoulder. "Go back, and do what you must, and then we will meet again."

The emotion in Gentatsu's eyes filled him with hope. Another new emotion. He liked it. "Yes, we will meet again."

"For now, until that person comes back, let's just be together, so that we have memories to look back on, until we meet again."

"Yes." Valgaav pulled Gentatsu to him and kissed him once more.

~~~

Time passed, how much time was hard to tell, because in that world, there really was no time. The figure in white returned, and took Valgaav away. He was no longer afraid to go back, no longer sad to leave Gentatsu. They would meet again. And if the other world still held nothing but pain, he would still have something to look forward to. He would try to help those he had hurt before, as he had been helped. That was what Gentatsu taught him.

And Gentatsu now knew that no matter how painful the things in the past were, there was always hope for the future; no matter how great the pain, there would always be something to help ease it. He looked forward to seeing Valgaav again one day.

~~~~~


End file.
